Ireland and its politics - if you want to know any more on Ireland and it's politics and it's troubles then go to www.angelfire.com/space/derryirsp this site has a grat discuss where any1 there will be more than happy to answer any questions u may have it also has great merchandise and has alot of information on the whole Republican Socilist Movement (IRSP/INLA) if you visit this site don't forget to support the struggle all contributions go to good use.
"Let the fight go on" INLA volunteer and Hungersriker PATSY O'HARA

- wat r u trying to say make ur point, more clear. The discuss and the information in Derry IRSP is not biased it is open to evry1 and every1 can have their say and ask questions on history and politics. The information provided is 110% accurate and true to the word. If u had bothered to take the time and use the discuss and read the documents in the web site then u would know am right, but instead u seem to have foot in mouth disease. So before u go making accustions that hold less water than a sieve do urself a favour and reserch. :)
"Saoirse go deo!"

A MEMBER of the IRA gang which savagely murdered Robert McCartney outside a Belfast pub has in the past acted as a bodyguard for Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein chief negiotiator, the Sunday Independent can reveal.

The gang, all members of the Provisional IRA, murdered Mr McCartney after a day-long drinking session to "celebrate" a Sinn Fein Bloody Sunday commemoration march in Derry.

Detectives say Mr McCartney was subjected to one of the most horrific acts of torture ever inflicted even in NI's savage 30-year Troubles.

One of the gang cut the father-of-two's throat and slashed open his stomach with a carving knife. As he lay bleeding to death outside the pub, other members of the gang kicked and jumped on his head. The victim was also beaten with sewer rods.

The man who carried out the knife-slashing on Mr McCartney and his friend, Brendan Devine - who also had his stomach slashed and his throat cut - holds a senior position in the Belfast IRA.

Another of the gang is a member of the IRA's General Army HQ staff and is close to the Sinn Fein leadership in Belfast and a frequent visitor to SF offices in west Belfast.

Despite its denial that its members were responsible for the murder, people in the Short Strand area of Belfast where Mr McCartney lived with his partner, Bridgeen and two sons, say the entire gang were IRA members.

Although the IRA said last Thursday that it would not intimidate witnesses, people in the area say that up to 50 people who were in the bar at the time of the murder have been warned they will be treated as informers if they give statements to the PSNI. Not a single witness has so far come forward despite pleas from Mr McCartney's sisters.

Mr Devine, 31, remains under armed guard in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast as it is feared he might be intimidated or even killed.

According to sources in Belfast the IRA figures involved are too senior in the organisation to be sacrificed. None has been expelled from the IRA.

It has also believed the knifeman is being protected by the IRA in the Republic.

- Die-hard faithful of the Irish American camp still convinced SF-IRA can do no wrong

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GERRY ADAMS was on stage as a guest of New York's Transport Workers Union explaining how comfortable he feels in America, when one of the myriad orange, green and white balloons festooning the hall popped with a loud bang. "That," he said without pause, "also makes me feel at home."

It was a joke that drew easy laughter from his audience, Irish-American members of the union who had gathered for an annual dinner to honour two fathers of the Irish republican movement, James Connolly and Michael Quill.

Already, they had given Mr Adams, as president of Sinn Fein, a standing ovation as he had entered the room accompanied by the strains of marching bagpipes and drums.

The recent allegations that Sinn Fein turned a blind eye to violence and crime committed by the IRA - the heist at the Northern Bank and the murder in a bar of Robert McCartney - have not given Mr Adams any cause to celebrate. Worse, his annual St Patrick's Day week in America has been eclipsed by headlines about political leaders here, from George Bush to Edward Kennedy, snubbing him this time.

But on this night, he was all grins. Eleven years after he was first allowed by then President Clinton to enter the United States, Mr Adams was the man of the hour.

On stage beside him were the leaders of the city's transport and police unions and, in a surprise appearance, John Sweeney, the powerful president of America's umbrella union organisation, the AFL-CIO, who called him a "courageous hero".

"I always feel uplifted by the people here," Mr Adams said during his 20-minute address, in which he referred only obliquely to what he described as a "huge avalanche of abuse being heaped upon Sinn Fein" back home.

Even if he will not be in the White House as usual on St Patrick's Day and even though this year he is not being allowed to raise money here, there is still succour for him in the United States. The cheering and whistling that greeted him at Monday's rally - one of scores of such events orchestrated for Mr Adams in several states across the US - is evidence that support for him and for Sinn Fein remains barely diminished among grass-roots Irish-Americans. If a barrage of suspicion and bile have struck him in Ireland and the United Kingdom, here it is still mostly adoration that greets him.

"I really think that in these days when he is being hit from every angle back home and he arrives here to be welcomed like this, then it must really mean something for him," commented Patricia Harty, editor of Irish-America magazine in New York. She admitted, however, that scant coverage of Northern Irish affairs in the US press means most of his supporters have only a vague notion of Sinn Fein's troubles.

True, there is still an oldguard of Irish-American activists in the US who have no time for Mr Adams or the peace process, which they angrily denounce as a sell-out to Westminster. But according to Patrick Doherty, one of the authors of the McBride Principles which set down standards of non-discrimination for US companies operating in Northern Ireland in the late 1980s, the opponents of the peace accord have become increasingly marginalised. "There is overwhelming support among Irish-Americans today for Adams and the peace process going forward," he said. "When Adams says he knows nothing about the bank robbery, they believe him. He has a high degree of credibility."

In another sign of Irish-Americans closing ranks behind Mr Adams, a delegation of community leaders, headed by the powerful Ancient Order of the Hibernians, met in New York earlier this month with Ireland's Ambassador to the US, Noel Fahey, to voice concern at attacks being made on Sinn Fein. The group expressed similar frustration in a letter to President Bush.

Supporters of Mr Adams here are trying not read too much into the snubs from the White House or Mr Kennedy. They hope the crisis will pass. As for his decision not to fundraise this time, it is not for fear, they argue, that Irish-Americans would seal their wallets because of recent events. "He would not lose a single dollar," insisted Mr Doherty. "He would raise just a much on this trip, if not more."

For his part, Mr Adams tried to reassure his union audience. The squeeze he faces, he insisted, is not because of "any events or dreadful incidents at home," but a result of Sinn Fein's electoral successes. "Most of these problems are created because Sinn Fein is being successful . . . not because it is failing."

And he vowed to fulfil the promise that most Irish-Americans still expect of him - the achievement of peace in and, in their minds, the final unification of the North and South. "We are going to resolve the current difficulties in the peace process and we are going to be moving the process forward," he said. And then, he said, his critics and foes will know they have lost. "The revenge we will have will be in the laughter of the Irish children."

One who sat and listened but decided against staying behind for the buffet dinner, was Eanna McCabe, 34, a New York police officer. McCabe is an Irish-American who has lost all patience with Mr Adams. "I was pretty much disgusted to see him up there spewing his crap," he said. "He is a wolf in sheep's clothing." Mr McCabe, however, was in a minority at the union hall on evening, quite possibly of one.

a few things on the McCartney case - if you would post all the relivant information on the mccartney case poeple can make up thier own mind. Don't get me wrong i believe that this incident is a savage murder and nothing else. But on the same note the IRA DID NOT sanction the murder but instead they expelled the culprits believed to be involved and to my disgust offered to shoot the people who carried out the attack. The IRA also held thier hands up and admitted that a few bad eggs had gotton into their ranks, un-like other armies that we know of. They also encouraged anyone with information to go forward WITHOUT fear and tell the police, a priest, local councillors anything that they know of that happened. Now the McCartney case is turning into a political propoganda war and the family of the McCarneys are being used as pawns in this new war. If the Ira can addmit and address when they have done something wrong why can't the British army addmit when they have wronged, eg: when they murdered 14 people in DERRY

- You sound like the typical Sinn Feiner when you say they are pawns..typical IRa paranoia which is unentirely un justified...If Irish Americans only knew how the IRA and INLA were in the last few years their political wings coffers would be dry and the mainstream nationlaist parties would be triumphing like SDLP , Fianna Fail, Labour Party etc...Dont start me on the Loyalist them skanger scumbags...

- diarmuidh with respect please dont tar all repudlicans with the same brush as the sell out brigade (sinn fein). I am a republican socailist and the IRSP have done a graet deal of sound community work here in Derry where social poverty is rife. I can see where you might have negative feelings about the INLA as in Dublin the scum that plagues the city are using the armies name to line thier own pockets and commit crimkes against the community, so i can acknowlege your some what hostile feelings but rest assure the servering members of the INLA do not take part in crimminal activities and the IRSP have great respect and political support at grass root levels and I am sure you will agree that is nothing but signs of better things to come